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SINAI

(Heb. sînay)

Aerial view of Jebel Mûsā, traditionally identified with Mt. Sinai (Werner Braun)

The name for both a wilderness area and the mountain at which the people of Israel made a covenant with God. It has also been used to refer to the peninsula lying between Egypt and Palestine. Mt. Sinai is called Horeb in many of the biblical traditions, particularly in Deuteronomy and Kings, and according to some is identical to Mt. Paran (Deut. 33:2).

Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal, on the east by the Gulf of Aqabah and the Negeb Desert, on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the south by the Red Sea. In area it occupies ca. 60,865 sq. km. (23,500 sq. mi.), most of which is arid land or desert. The southern part of the peninsula is made up of huge granite mountains and deep wadis that drain off most of the rainfall into the gulfs of Suez or Aqabah. The northern two thirds of the peninsula consists of a large plateau that slopes down toward the Mediterranean. This plateau is drained by the Wadi el-ʿArish (the biblical Brook of Egypt). This wadi in ancient times often formed the natural border between Palestine and Egypt.

In prehistoric times there seems to have been much more rainfall on Sinai than today, since hunters seem to have been plentiful both there and in the Negeb Desert. Settlements have been found dating back as far as the 9th millennium in the southern Sinai. Southern and eastern Sinai seem to have been home to pastoralists and copper miners during the 4th millennium. Connections between Egypt and Palestine are attested by Egyptian inscriptions with Arabic names at copper mines in Sinai from the 3rd and 2nd millennia.

The northern part of the Sinai Peninsula formed the only land bridge between Asia and Africa in ancient times. A road leading from Egypt across the top of Sinai joined the Via Maris, the “Way of the Sea.” Along this road has been found evidence of many small settlements dating from the 4th millennium onward, and later a number of forts guarding the way. It was because of these forts that the Israelites are said to have avoided the northern route, the “way of the land of the Philistines” into Canaan (Exod. 13:17).

Wilderness and Mt. Sinai

In the Exodus account the Israelites came to the wilderness of Sinai after passing through the wilderness of Shur, the oasis of Elim, the wilderness of Sin and Rephidim. The location of the wilderness, like that of Mt. Sinai, is uncertain, but tradition locates it in the southern part of the peninsula, in the area of huge granite mountains.

The problem of identifying both the wilderness and the mountain arises because of uncertainty about the route the Israelites took after leaving Egypt. Num. 33 gives a summary of the route taken from the city of Rameses to the plains of Moab, but none of the stations between “the Sea” and Ezion-geber (Elath) at the head of the Gulf of Aqabah can be identified with certainty.

Since the 4th century c.e. tradition has identified Mt. Sinai with Jebel Mûsā (Arab. “Mountain of Moses,” 2300 m. [7486 ft.]) in the southern part of the peninsula, near the monastery of St. Catherine, established in the 6th century and still inhabited by Orthodox monks. Other nearby mountains such as Jebel Katerīn (2600 m. [8652 ft.]) or Jebel Serbāl (2075 m. [6791 ft.]) have also been suggested.

Some scholars argue that all of the sites mentioned in Num. 33 should be located in the southern Negeb, in proximity to Kadesh-barnea, which seems to have been a central place during the wilderness period. Deut. 33:2; Judg. 5:4-5; Hab. 3:3 seem to associate God’s revelation in the wilderness in association with Seir, or Edom. In that case Mt. Sinai is to be identified with Jebel µalal (Har Karkom), 35 km. (22 mi.) W of Kadesh-barnea.

Other suggestions locate Mt. Sinai in northwest Arabia, near Midian (cf. Exod. 3:1), or in the north or west of the Sinai Peninsula.

For many scholars the most likely location of Sinai is still in the southern part of the peninsula. The reference in Deut. 1:2 to “eleven days’ journey” from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mt. Seir fits that location, as does the ancient tradition linking Mt. Sinai to Jebel Mûsā. The account in 1 Kgs. 19:8 of Elijah’s journey of “forty days and forty nights” from Beer-sheba to Horeb supports the idea that Sinai/Horeb was a long way from Kadesh-barnea. However, identification remains uncertain, since the temporary nature of any Israelite settlements make the recovery of archaeological evidence unlikely.

Biblical Traditions

The most extensive account of the events at Sinai is found from Exod. 19 through Num. 10. In addition, several passages in Deuteronomy retell parts of the Sinai narrative, although there the mountain is called Horeb.

The narrative begins in Exod. 19:1 with the Israelites’ arrival at the wilderness of Sinai. There they camp in front of the mountain, after which the people are constituted as the people of God. The narrative in Exod. 19–40 is characterized by the movement of Moses, the leader of the people and their mediator with God, between the mountain and the camp. Within this pattern of movement occurs the promise of covenant (Exod. 19:3-8a), theophany (19:8b-20b), the giving of the Ten Commandments (19:20b–20:21a) and the law found in the Book of the Covenant, and the making of the covenant (20:21b–24:8). The climactic threefold movement up the mountain begins with Exod. 24:9. In Exod. 24:9 Moses goes up the mountain with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of the elders. He next goes up with only his servant Joshua (Exod. 24:13). Finally, in Exod. 24:15 Moses goes up the mountain alone, remaining for 40 days and 40 nights. Here he receives the instructions for the tabernacle, in which God will dwell in the midst of his people (Exod. 25–31).

The pattern is disrupted in Exod. 32 by the activity in the camp below: the building of the golden calf, an “antitabernacle,” and Moses’ breaking of the “tables of testimony.” The movement is resumed in Exod. 34, , as Moses returns up the mountain to receive again the tablets of the covenant. He descends for the building of the tabernacle in Exod. 35–40. The final movement is not by Moses but God, who moves down from the mountain to dwell among his people (Exod. 40:34).

The placement of Leviticus right after the glory (kāḇôḏ) of the Lord fills the tabernacle is intended to signal that it is from the tabernacle that the instructions found in the book of Leviticus are given, even though later in that book Mt. Sinai is again mentioned as the place of revelation (Exod. 25:1; 27:34).

Num. 1–10 deals with the formation of God’s holy army, laid out as a camp in concentric circles. In the center of the camp is the Lord himself, surrounded by the Levites, with the other tribes encamped on every side (Num. 2). In Num. 10:11-12 the people leave Sinai for the wilderness of Paran.

The parallel account of revelation and covenant in Deuteronomy speaks of Horeb rather than Sinai (Deut. 1:2, 6, 19; 4:10, 15; 5:2; 9:8; 18:16; 29:1[28:69]), except in Moses’ blessing in 33:2. It is also to Horeb that Elijah flees after being threatened with death by Queen Jezebel (1 Kgs. 19:8).

Bibliography. Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1979); G. I. Davies, The Way of the Wilderness. SOTSMS 5 (Cambridge, 1979); A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000-586 b.c.e. (New York, 1990); R. W. L. Moberly, At the Mountain of God. JSOTSup 22 (Sheffield, 1983); E. W. Nicholson, Exodus and Sinai in History and Tradition (Richmond, 1973).

Marilyn J. Lundberg

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SINAI

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)